When there aren't enough spoons

There isn't really a short simple title that says....

I'm a Stay at home mom SAHM
I'm Disabled
We travel full time by RV (most of the year, hibernate in winter)
I home school twin boys.

I am a stay-at-home, disabled, full-time traveling, twin boy road-schooling mom. I wonder if that would fit on a business card.

I used to say "I'm an accountant". Life can throw a nasty curve ball called "I bet you thought everything was going great. Now watch this". Enter severely bad health and multiple surgeries along with a lot of DV.
(This is a good site. If you are NOT SAFE AND IN FEAR, PLEASE GO TO THIS WEBSITE AND LEAVE QUICKLY http://domesticviolence.org/)

The Spoon Theory

 https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

The idea behind this is that you have so many spoons for the day or week. These spoons are your energy. Some days it takes all my spoons to get out of bed. Other days I hope to still have a spoon left for sex. If my husband helps with things during the day, which he does if he can, I have spoons left for that night.
Sometimes I start the day with negative spoons, which means I can't do anything and just hope that tomorrow I wake up with one.

There are 168 hours in a week 

I'm going to average this since there are many things that only happen once a week, or once a month.

Average week: 

Sleeping = 42 hours (if I'm lucky) If I slept 8 hours a night, I would have zero time left after everything else. The less hours of sleep I get, the less spoons I wake up with. The more sleep I get, the more spoons I have, but the less time I have to do anything.
This, is the chronic pain conundrum.

Teaching home school = 25 hours (not including PE, arts n crafts, science experiments, museums, field trips, etc AND cleaning it up. 

Preparing/cooking and serving 3 meals a day = 7-10 hours (sometimes we eat out, or hub helps)

Dishes/scrubbing/sweeping/mopping and general cleaning = 10 hours weekly average at least

Laundry/grocery shopping/errands = 10 hours easy 

Traveling assistant; making 20 phone calls to campgrounds, Rv parks, motels/hotels, any place to stay, car or truck rental, mapping the route, or co-pilot, assistanting in all aspects of traveling, mapping every location along the way and places we'll need once there, finding gas stations, places to eat, laundromats, checking prices, numerous online searches, research, contracts, hiring, etc (since this doesn't happen every week, I'll say the average is) 5-10 hours 

Doctor appts = 1 hour average (unless I have to drive or fly from our job site, then its several hours, if not a day or two)

Bathing/primping/manicuring = 5 hours 

Traveling is not every week, but on average, driving time is = 5-10 (average a few days a month)

Referring, playing with and entertaining fighting twins, taking care of pets = 10 hours 

Due to chronic pain, it takes at least an hour every morning to get out of bed, take my pills, drink coffee, and pray for a good day = 10 hours, at least. If not at least an hour, I'll start throwing those 'spoons'.

 

Making necessary phone calls, paying bills, helping everyone do everything else = 2 hours 

So apparently I have a few hours a day to myself where much needed rest and recouperation is greatly needed. And in that space, we try to have quality time for us. 

Mind you, I am mentally (Ptsd and anxiety) and physically disabled (endo, fibro, mctd) for life, have a permanently dislocated unusable shoulder (that needs a state of the art surgery), suffer from severe chronic pain and migraines, and can not function normally on a daily basis.
 

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/home/ovc-20308548
https://www.womenshealth.gov/a-z-topics/endometriosis
http://www.webmd.com/fibromyalgia/default.htm
http://www.medicinenet.com/mixed_connective_tissue_disease/article.htm
 

It's still not always good enough. If I'm not on top of things daily, I appear lazy. 

When full blown fibro flares kick in, I am down for days at a time. Whatever my man can't help with, since he works, is all still waiting for me when I'm better. I don't have a team of helpers to do my job for me when I can't.

I just hope it's good enough.
 

The Phantom Bleeder

          I had a hysterectomy a few years back for Endometriosis but opted to keep my run-down ovaries, that is if they looked ok when the doc went in. They weren't too bad so that's all that's left of my womanhood down there, other than my boobs, I mean I'm still a girl ok, even if everything is a little run down or lower that it used to be.

          So this phantom bleeder that I've mentioned, it sucks. My daughter is on her period, her friends probably are, both of our dogs are in heat. Damn bleeding bitches. I feel everything still, just a little less than before.

     It only makes me want to choke a little less of the people that cross my path so that's good for them too. My lower back still hurts and I still feel cramping but that's just the Endo that got left behind that flares up with any surge of hormones. (Seriously, so much got left behind, they have to keep going in and cutting it out, and yet Endo grows on scar tissue, so it's this wonderful merry go round.) I still get emotional, irritable...all the same stuff that happens on a period, only I don't bleed. I also have no way of knowing when it's coming. There's no PMS. There's no warning. One day I'm Mary Poppins, the next....Medusa. I made cookies for the kids one time, and ate most of them the next day. It came on that fast. At this point, I'm looking forward to menopause, because I don't know how long I can handle menobroken-record.

Between that, the Fibro and arthritis I creak and hobble around. It looks like I'm trying to do the "Thriller" video dance down the hallway.


     So I'm "phantom bleeding" right now and I just wish I only had to do this every 6 months like the dogs. My daughter put a doggie diaper on her little one, it's her first heat. It was cute. You just have to take it off or change it every time you take them out to use the restroom.

A diaper you have to take off so you can pee. Fascinating. I had toddlers that did that without asking, bless their pissing little heart.



I got one for my dog and it would be fit for a small pony. But then I probably would forget to take it off so she could go outside and then freak out cuz she can't get the poop out and run around trying to figure out what to do, with crap hanging out as she's dragging her ass on the ground trying to get that contraption off of her. It was way more of a mess than anticipated. Then the dog got a hysterectomy. She's just mad she can't have chocolate. 

My phantom period has all the trademarks, moody, emotional, irritable, hungry, need chocolate, in pain, muscle cramps, crying during commercials. I had a hysterectomy 10 freaking years ago, and the lack of bleeding is literally the only difference. And now I get to be anemic. I wish there was some type of expiration date on these things that actually made sense. Like, one day you push out a kid, and your whole uterus just pops out too. "Oh you have a girl, and you graduated periods! Congratulations!!"

Being on the rag though, ugh....
I'm pretty sure that's how it got the name "the rag". A long time ago, the first bleeder could only think of one thing, stick a towel up that freaking faucet. I'm so glad I didn't have to clean out bloody wash clothes over and over. I don't remember seeing too many stories about that in Little House on the Prarie..."Oh no Laura, it's that time of month? Do you happen to have any spare rags in your outhouse?"

Sure Betty, they're next to the corn cobs. We got Pa's old hankies and Ma's dish towels, depending on your flow.